Ravensburger 21580 Minecraft Explorers - Cooperative Card Game for 2-4 People Ages 8 and up

Seems complicated at first, but once you start playing it's a pretty simple game to play with the kids. My son loves Minecraft, and this was a great way to get him off screens while still enjoying Minecraft together. Our family really likes the cooperative game play - my 8 year old particularly loves playing games together, but is not competitive, and so a cooperative game where we are all problem-solving together is perfect. Players take turns one at a time, helping each other to decide on the best course of action to complete the goal (acquiring resources and filling chests). "Ages 8 and up" is accurate, I wouldn't try with kids younger than 8 (unless they have a particularly mature attention span). You can increase the difficulty of the game to whatever you want it to be, so you can keep older kids engaged, too. The box is very sturdy, which I really appreciate. We'll be able to continue to use the box it came in to store the cards. It's a fun game, utilizing problem-solving and long-term thinking (how should we use our limited time to get the most done per turn), but simple enough to explain to a 3rd grader. I would recommend it to any families who have a Minecraft fan at home and want a way to interact off-screen together.

10/10 game! Definitely a must for any Minecraft kid! It definitely has a little bit of a learning curve and took keep the instructions nearby until we all got the hang of it. It’s now the favourite game and gets played at least once a day! I love that it’s a good way for them to get their Minecraft fix without a screen!

I love cooperative games for our family - especially for our competitive 6 year old. The game is pretty simple to learn. It follows the standard card game format: each player's turn has them using their "food energy" cards to make choices that cost a certain amount of "food energy". So each player can collect items and/or fight monsters. The goal is for the team to collect the items needed to fill the chests. The challenge is to keep the monsters in check before we are overrun. There is also the Game Over card that is toward the bottom of the deck that will immediately end the game. Very simple concept but lots of fun. And a lot of conversations (especially with our 6 year old) about what the most pragmatic/helpful/logical choice to make and/or how to set up your teammate to have a fruitful turn as well. Our 6 year old loves Minecraft and he also likes board game so this was a no brainier. We also find ourselves having interesting conversations about his tendency to be a little too self-interested in his pursuit of collecting armor (his favorite part of the video game is also acquiring armor) in lieu of helping the team fight monsters or collect items. It's actually been a great opportunity to explore community cooperation in a low risk setting. Cards look great and are well made and thick. Very fun to look at - look just like you'd expect a Minecraft branded game to look. Definitely worth the cost - we'll get a lot of play time. We can even convince our 16 year old to play. We all find it pretty enjoyable to do cooperative games with our kindergartner. Husband tried playing the game solo. He said it's much more challenging playing solo but still doable. Love that it's an option.

My 7 year old loved it! Very simple to understand. Although he was fine with it I felt it could have been alittle deeper far as gameplay mechanics. Overall the material is decent quality for the price and plenty of replay ability

Fun cooperative game. The cards are decent quality. The artwork is straight out of Minecraft. No need to understand Minecraft the video game in order to enjoy this. Good value. Doesn't take too long to play. Provides a decent challenge but has flexible difficulty in case you need to adjust the challenge.

This game is great for kids who like Minecraft. The game maker did a really nice job of translating a video game into a card game. This is also a cooperative game, so a really good one to play for parents or older relatives to play with kids.

My 7-year-old son enjoys this game and likes playing it with mom and dad. It took us more than a few rounds to fully understand how it works, but once we got it, it became enjoyable. He even carried it with him on a recent family trip to play with his aunt and uncles. It’s nice and portable, so it’s perfect to bring on holiday. A round ends in about 30 minutes, so it’s not too long or overly complicated for younger players.

This game is SO MUCH FUN! The instructions were initially a bit complicated for us but we found a great tutorial by The Dicey Review on YouTube which broke it down for us really nicely as we're visual learners. My eight year old son, my husband and I all thoroughly enjoyed this game, and it is very easy to play once you understand it, and the difficulty level is customizable. It also gives you a lot of freedom of choice with how you play your turns. I love that when you play multi-player it is a cooperative effort and that you win or lose as a team in the end. I also love that it can even be played solo (which my husband immediately said after our first play-through that he plans to do at some point because he had so much fun lol). If you're thinking about buying this, do not hesitate! It is a superb value, as you can get endless hours of fun out of this $8 game. It truly is like going on a Minecraft adventure in card game format. It is incredibly fun even for adults and easy enough for kids maybe as young as 6 or 7 to understand and enjoy, and I also highly recommend that video tutorial I mentioned (which I am not affiliated with in any way, but found enormously helpful in easily understanding the game.)